Code Lyoko
Code Lyoko is a French animated television series created by Thomas Romain and Tania Palumbo and produced by the MoonScoop Group for Cartoon Network and France 3. The series centers on a group of teenagers who travel to the virtual world of Lyoko to battle against a malignant artificial intelligence known as X.A.N.A. who threatens Earth. The scenes in the real world are presented in 2D hand-drawn animation, while the scenes in Lyoko are presented in CGI animation. The series began its first, ninety-five episode run on 3 September 2003, on France's France 3, and ended on 10 November 2007. It started airing in the United States on 19 April 2004 on Cartoon Network. Code Lyoko aired every day on Cartoon Network, in the Miguzi programming block, at 5:30 P.M. U.S. Eastern Time, sometimes showing two episodes consecutively, in the cases of season finales. On 31 May 2011, the MoonScoop Group announced on its Facebook page that the show would return for a fifth season. This follow-up series was officially named "Code Lyoko: Evolution," which began airing at the end of 2012. This "continuation" to the series featured live action sequences for scenes taking place in the real world, but retained the iconic CGI style for scenes taking place in Lyoko as it also had an updated style compared to the original series. The show consisted of 26 episodes with the final episode airing in 2013 as it also left off on a cliffhanger. Plot Season One Jeremie Belpois, a 13-year-old prodigy attending boarding school at Kadic Academy, discovers a quantum supercomputer in an abandoned factory near his school. Upon activating it, he discovers a virtual world called Lyoko with a young girl named Aelita trapped inside it. Jeremie learns of X.A.N.A., a fully-autonomous, malevolent, and highly-intelligent multi-agent system, that also dwells within the Supercomputer. Using Lyoko's power, X.A.N.A is able to possess electronics and machinery (and later, people) in the real world to wreak havoc. X.A.N.A.'s primary directive is to destroy Lyoko, conquer the real world and enslave all human beings. Jeremie works tirelessly to materialize Aelita into the real world and stop attacks caused by X.A.N.A.. Jeremie is aided by his three friends Odd Della Robbia, Ulrich Stern, and Yumi Ishiyama as they are virtualized into Lyoko in order to save both worlds from the sinister virtual entity. They achieve this by escorting Aelita to various towers on Lyoko, which serve as interface terminals between Lyoko and Earth, and having her deactivate the one that X.A.N.A. is using to access the real world. Once the tower is deactivated, Jeremie is able to launch a "Return to the Past" program, which sends anyone scanned into the Supercomputer's memory back in time, whilst retaining memory of the other timeline, to undo any damage caused by X.A.N.A.. In "Code: Earth," Aelita is finally materialized, but the group discovers that X.A.N.A. had planted a virus inside of her that kills her if the Supercomputer is deactivated. Season Twosource Aelita adjusts to life in the real world, while Jeremie attempts to develop an anti-virus program for her in an attempt to fully liberate her from X.A.N.A.'s power. On Lyoko, a fifth sector is discovered and the group explores more of Lyoko's secrets and mysteries. The gang begins to uncover information about a mysterious man named Franz Hopper, who went missing ten years ago, supposedly created the Supercomputer, Lyoko, and X.A.N.A., and claimed to be Aelita's father. The quintet eventually discovers that Franz Hopper is indeed alive somewhere, hiding deep within the uncharted parts of Lyoko to avoid X.A.N.A. further. All the while, X.A.N.A. attempts to steal Aelita's memory using a special monster, the Scyphozoa, in order to gain the Keys to Lyoko and free itself. At the end of the season, Aelita and Jeremie discover that Aelita does not have a virus, and instead is missing a fragment of herself, consisting of her lost memories. In "The Key," X.A.N.A. tricks them with a fake fragment and succeeds in stealing Aelita's memory and escaping the Supercomputer into the World Wide Web, which exists in the Digital Sea outside of Lyoko. Aelita appears to perish as a result, but is revived when Franz Hopper gives her his faction of the Keys to Lyoko and restores the hidden memories of her forgotten childhood before being virtualized on Lyoko. Season Three Since succeeding in escaping the confinements of the supercomputer, X.A.N.A. changes tactics by destroying each of Lyoko's surface sectors, until only Carthage (Sector Five) is left. Initially reluctant, the Lyoko Warriors make the decision to invite William Dunbar as the sixth member. However, shortly after being virtualized, he is possessed by X.A.N.A. via the Scyphozoa. Shortly after, he destroys the Core of Lyoko, destroying the entire virtual world in doing so and rendering the group helpless against X.A.N.A.. After what they thought was their defeat, Jeremie receives a coded message from Franz Hopper that allows him to recreate Lyoko effectively and continue the fight against X.A.N.A. Season Four Jeremie and the four Lyoko Warriors construct a digital submarine, the Skidbladnir (commonly referred to as the "Skid"), to travel across the Digital Sea to destroy X.A.N.A.'s "Replikas," which are copies of Lyoko's sectors that are linked to X.A.N.A.-controlled supercomputers on Earth, all created for its goal of world domination. X.A.N.A. uses William as its general throughout the season to defend the Replikas, and sabotage the Lyoko Warriors in any way he can. To prevent suspicion regarding William's disappearance, Jeremie uses a voice synthesizer program in the Supercomputer to pose as William's father in a phone call and inform Kadic's headmaster that William has been brought home with the flu. He also manages to program a spectre to take William's place at Kadic, although the clone has very low-level intelligence and acts very moronic. Near the end of the season, X.A.N.A. decides to draw energy from all of its Replikas to create the Kolossus, a gigantic, seemingly-invincible monster that later destroys the Skidbladnir. Before it is destroyed, Jeremie frees William from X.A.N.A.'s control. After he returned, he had a difficult time gaining the trust of the group. While Ulrich defeats the Kolossus, Franz Hopper sacrifices himself in order to power Jeremie's "anti-X.A.N.A. program," which destroys X.A.N.A. upon activation. Shortly after, the group, albeit reluctant due to their nostalgia, decides to shut down the Supercomputer. Characters Main * Jeremie Belpois (Alternatively Jérémie; Spelling was officially changed to Jeremy after the first season) (voiced by Sharon Mann) * Aelita Schaeffer (Commonly known by alias Aelita Stones) (voiced by Sharon Mann) * Odd Della Robbia (voiced by Matthew Géczy) * Ulrich Stern (voiced by Barbara Weber-Scaff) * Yumi Ishiyama (voiced by Mirabelle Kirkland) * William Dunbar (voiced by David Gasman) * X.A.N.A. Recurring * Elisabeth "Sissi" Delmas * Kiwi the dog * Herb Pichon (known as Hervé in the French version) * Nicholas Poliakoff * Jim Morales * Jean-Pierre Delmas * Suzanne Hertz * Amelia "Milly" Solovieff * Tamiya Diop * Hiroki Ishiyama * Takeho Ishiyama * Akiko Ishiyama * Johnny * Theo Gauthier Supporting * Taelia ("The Girl of the Dreams") * Samantha "Sam" Knight ("Rock Bottom?" and "Final Round") * Gilles Fumet * Yolanda Perraudin * Rosa Petitjean * Nicole Weber * Gustave Chardin * Mrs. Meyer * Waldo Franz Schaeffer (most commonly known by alias Franz Hopper) * Anthea Hopper-Schaeffer ("The Key and "Distant Memory"; flashbacks 7 dreams) * Mr. Stern (3 Episodes) * Mrs. Stern ("Zero Gravity Zone" and "Distant Memory") * Michael Belpois ("Franz Hopper" and "Distant Memory") * Patrick Belpois ("Cousins Once Removed") * Mr. and Mrs. Della Robbia ("Bad Connection") Development Original promotional poster for Garage Kids Origins Code Lyoko originates from the film short Les enfants font leur cinéma ("The children make their movies"), directed by Thomas Romain and produced by a group of students from Parisian visual arts school Gobelins School of the Image.2 Romain worked with Tania Palumbo, Stanislas Brunet, and Jerome Cottray to create the film, which was screened at the 2000 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.3 French animation company Antefilms offered Romain and Palumbo a contract as a result of the film. This led to the development of the pilot, Garage Kids.2 Garage Kids was first released in 2001. The project was created by Palumbo, Romain, and Carlo de Boutiny and developed by Anne de Galard. Its producers were Eric Garnet, Nicolas Atlan, Benoît di Sabatino, and Christophe di Sabatino. The project was produced by Antefilms. Similar to its succeeding show Code Lyoko, Garage Kids was originally intended to be a 26-episode miniseries detailing the lives of four French boarding school students who discover the secret of the virtual world of Xanadu; created by a research group headed by a character known as the "Professor". The pilot featured both traditional animation and CGI.4 Garage Kids evolved into Code Lyoko, which began broadcast in 2003, with the virtual world renamed to "Lyoko." Romain, however, left the show to work on the Japanese anime series Ōban Star-Racers. The factory and boarding school are based on real locations in France. The factory was based on a Renault production plant in Boulogne-Billancourt, which has since been demolished.5 The school, Kadic Academy, is based on Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux.6 Broadcast In the United States, the series premiered on 19 April 2004 on Cartoon Network. The second season started on 19 September 2005. The two-part XANA Awakens prequel aired on 2–3 October 2006, and the third season started a day later on 4 October 2006. The fourth and final season began on 18 May 2007. The last episode aired on Cartoon Network was "Cousins Once Removed", and the remaining seven episodes were released online at Cartoon Network video. When the series aired on Cartoon Network, it was simultaneously both part of its after-school weekday afternoon action animation lighter-toned programming block, MiGUZi from 2004 to 2007, and also a standalone show on its primetime timeslot. Since 2007, the show began airing on Kabillion until 2015. The show also aired in Latin America and Japan on Jetix. Since 2015, all of the episodes aired in English (including the prequel XANA Awakens) are currently viewable via YouTube. In Italy the show was airing on Disney Channel and published on DVD by Delta Pictures Under the label 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment On March 1? TBA on Titmouse TV The First Season 3 And Season 4 Final season afternoon action animation lighter-toned programming block, Miguzi Master Control And Bionix Accolades The series received mostly positive reviews. Code Lyoko was voted as the best show by Canal J viewers in France,7 and has achieved international fame as well; the show has been rated as one of the best shows on Cartoon Network and Kabillion in the United States, with Cartoon Network having it rated as the #3 best performing show in 200689 and Kabillion having it as #4 in monthly average views in 2010.9 The show has reached success in Spain as one of Clan TVE's highest rated shows,9 on Italy's Rai2 network,9 and in Finland and the United Kingdom as well. The show also won France's Prix de l'Export 2006 Award for Animation in December 2006.10 Merchandise Several Code Lyoko products have been released, including DVDs, a series of cine-manga by Tokyopop, a series of four novels by Italian publisher Atlantyca Entertainment, apparel and other accessories. In 2006, Marvel Toys released a line of Code Lyoko toys and action figures. The Game Factory has released three video games based on the show: Code Lyoko and Code Lyoko: Fall of X.A.N.A. for the Nintendo DS, and Code Lyoko: Quest for Infinity for the Wii, PSP, and PlayStation 2. There have been other games released through various mediums, one being Facebook.911 A series of Clan TVE festivals in Spain included live stage shows based on Code Lyoko among other things.12 A game show known as Code Lyoko Challenge was planned to be released in late 2012, but fell through.9 In January 2011, all four seasons of Code Lyoko were released on iTunes in the US and in France by Moonscoop Holdings, although as of July 2017 only season 4 vol's 1 and 2 are available and other seasons have been removed. In October 2011, all four seasons were released on Amazon Instant Streaming and via DVD in the same countries, however these DVDs are now out of print and extremely difficult to find.13 On 6 August 2012, all four seasons were made available on Netflix DVD and Instant Watch. Book series A series of four chapter books was released by Atlantyca Entertainment and distributed in Italy and other countries. The novels delve deeper into the unanswered questions of the series. Taking place after the end of the series, X.A.N.A. has miraculously survived and returns, though weakened and initially missing its memories. X.A.N.A. possesses Eva Skinner, an American girl, and travels to France in order to infiltrate the gang and kill them off. Unaware of their enemy's presence, the group works to find clues about Aelita's past, left by her father Franz Hopper, and confirm whether or not her mother is still alive somewhere. But at the same time, a terrorist group, the Green Phoenix, has become interested in the supercomputer and intend to use both it and the virtual world of Lyoko for evil purposes. It was confirmed that the series will never be released officially in English, nor the final two books released in French. However, some time later, a fan community came together and sought to not only finish the series but translate it into more languages, including English. They have since completed their work and made it available for free download in September 2014. 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